Last night, I was riding the streetcar home. Of course,
I was wearing my Santa Hat,
my nose buried in a novel.
I looked up as the doors opened at a stop, and noticed
that a lady was pointing at me. She was talking to a
man behind her, but she wasn't looking at him. She
was looking at me. She said, "We are going to have to
get you a hat like that."

The man looked at me, and his eyes gleamed with hatred.
I guess he was thinking, "Within 24 hours, I'll be wearing
a %(##!&^ santa hat and it's all your fault."

On the whole, though, reactions to the Santa hat have
been pretty positive.

Excerpt from mail sent later in 1999

After doing a web search, I have a theory:
The internet's merchants think that if you
want to buy a Santa hat, you also want to buy